McMorris Rodgers makes 2014 bid official

Cathy McMorris Rodgers made her re-election campaign official Monday, announcing she’ll seek a sixth term in the House of Representatives.

The announcement is primarily a formality because the Spokane-area Republican has been raising money almost since the 2012 election ended and already has collected some $1.3 million for the upcoming campaign.

Rival Democrats have recruited Joe Pakootas, chief executive officer of the Colville Tribal business operation to run against her. David Wilson, former head of Interface College, is running as an independent.

. . . McMorris Rodgers said her priorities for the past two years have been to control federal spending and stop regulations that hurt economic growth. She said she wanted to keep working to find “positive, pragmatic solutions for tax reform, immigration and health care.”

On that last issue, she has repeatedly voted with House Republicans to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which she and other Republicans usually call “Obamacare".

A former state legislator first elected to an open seat in the 5th Congressional District in 2004, McMorris Rodgers rose through GOP leadership ranks and is now the House Republican Conference chairwoman. An early supporter of eventual presidential nominee Mitt Romney, she was a speaker at the 2012 Republican National Convention and gave the official Republican response to President Obama’s State of the Union address in January.

She is the highest ranking Republican woman in the House and often presents her party’s counter to Democratic claims of GOP legislation they label “a war on women.”

Her announcement comes at the beginning of a week in which she has scheduled both congressional and campaign stops around the Eastern Washington District.

She has a campaign luncheon in Walla Walla today cqTuesday is sandwiched between a ceremony at the Veterans Affairs Center and a meeting with constituents at the airport. Her campaign lunch Wednesday in Colville comes after a public meeting on forest issues in that city’s American Legion post and before a public meeting on economic issues at Republic Elementary School. She also has a campaign breakfast in Spokane Thursday.

McMorris Rodgers was investigated earlier this year by the Office of Congressional Ethics after a former staff member claimed her employees improperly did campaign work on congressional time in 2012. She insisted her staff knew and followed all rules separating congressional and political work. House Ethics Committee leaders said they will continue to review the case but would not assign it to special panel for further investigations, meaning it’s unlikely she’ll face sanctions for the allegations.